EXCLUSIVE: Jason Flemyng, best known for his collaborations with Matthew Vaughn and roles in such pics as X-Men: First Class and Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, is sinking his teeth into directing with vampire thriller Eat Local. Filming began this week with Daredevil‘s Charlie Cox starring alongside Mackenzie Crook (Pirates Of The Caribbean, Game Of Thrones), actor-writer-director Dexter Fletcher (Eddie The Eagle), Freema Agyeman (Doctor Who) and Eve Myles (Doctor Who, Torchwood). Danny King, a BAFTA nominee for Wild Bill, penned the script.

Eat Local revolves around unwitting Essex boy Sebastian (newcomer Billy Cook), whose promise of a night of passion with a ravishing cougar quickly turns into a fight for survival after she decides to introduce him to some of her friends — a coven of hungry vampires — at a remote farmhouse. Added to the mix, a heavily armed band of mercenary vampire hunters crashes the party.

Rod Smith of Evolution Pictures is producing, along with Jonathan Sothcott and Neil Jones of Hereford Films.

Flemyng says Eat Local has been 10 years in the making “and has been through so many different budgets and guises, but me and Danny King have worked together and finally we’re here. We’re three days into shooting and 50% of what we’re doing is better than I could have imagined and 50% is as good as I could have hoped. Everyone is working really hard with budgets they haven’t seen for 20 years and the actors are working for beer and lunch money. But we’re doing it, we’ve pulled it together, and I’m so thrilled.”

Evolution’s credits include the upcoming We Steal The Old Way. Eat Local is its biggest production to date.

Principal photography will wrap in February after a four-week shoot in Hertfordshire. GFM Films’ newly formed GFM Evolution will launch sales at the EFM in Berlin.